Category: today’s top story

“The Cult of the Amateur is a broadside attack on Web 2.0, a term we may hastily define here as that growing sector of the internet which serves mainly as a platform for user-generated content, including sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Typepad, Blogger and YouTube. The main thrust of his argument is that all this home-made content – blogs, podcasts, amateur videos and music – is an inadequate replacement for mainstream media. It may be a harmless, even occasionally enriching addition, but we can’t have both, because the former is swiftly killing off the latter.”

“David Lassman, the director of the Jane Austen Festival in Bath decided to find out what sort of reception the writer might get if she approached publishers and agents in the age of Harry Potter and the airport blockbuster. After making only minor changes, he sent off opening chapters and plot synopses to 18 of the UK’s biggest publishers and agents. He was amazed when they all sent the manuscripts back with polite but firm ‘no-thank-you’s’ and almost all failed to spot that he was ripping off one of the world’s most famous literary figures.”

You won’t be able to buy the new Harry Potter book until tomorrow at midnight, but you can read the first professional review now. (Don’t worry – the review contains no spoilers.) “While Ms. Rowling’s astonishingly limber voice still moves effortlessly between Ron’s adolescent sarcasm and Harry’s growing solemnity, from youthful exuberance to more philosophical gravity, ‘Deathly Hallows’ is, for the most part, a somber book that marks Harry’s final initiation into the complexities and sadnesses of adulthood… No wonder then that Harry often seems overwhelmed with disillusionment and doubt in the final installment of this seven-volume bildungsroman.”

“The New York Philharmonic reached into its family tree and plucked Alan Gilbert, the 40-year-old son of two Philharmonic musicians, as its next music director, making him the first native New Yorker in the position and a rare American in the job. Philharmonic officials also said they would appoint an elder statesman, Riccardo Muti, 65, to serve in a supporting role equivalent to principal guest conductor.”

“Individual donors are surpassing companies as the U.K.’s biggest arts benefactors. They are giving museums, concert halls and opera houses money to expand, beef up programming, or stay afloat. U.K.-based individuals gave 262.4 million pounds to the arts in 2005 — the latest figures available — almost twice as much as businesses, which gave 153.4 million pounds, according to Arts & Business, a London-based charity that links the arts with business donors.”

Pilobolus has always been a different kind of dance company. But the group is making a new business model that’s finding commercial success. “The company has done commercial work for some time, but in the last year, that work has attracted considerably more attention. AdWeek named a commercial Pilobolus appeared in for the Hyundai Sante Fe the ‘best spot’ of the month in its October 2006 issue. The company also appeared at the Academy Awards, making shadows behind a screen that evoked various hit movies of the year.”

Michael Linton says that orchestras aren’t in danger of fading from the national cultural scene, so long as they recognize the evolution of their role in it. “Music managers typically think that their job is to present the highest level of musical performances possible and pay for them by selling seats and catching grants. It isn’t… Music executives’ real business is developing communities of patrons. And educating their children.”

The Chicago Symphony, plagued by red ink in recent years, has brought its budget into balance for the fiscal year just concluded. “Ticket sales for CSO main series performances increased from $4.2 million in 2005-06 to $4.3 million in 2006-07, representing just over 85 percent paid capacity.” The orchestra also kept its endowment draw to a pre-planned 5%, or $10m.

“Of all the magical powers wielded by Harry Potter, perhaps none has cast a stronger spell than his supposed ability to transform the reading habits of young people… [But] the truth about Harry Potter and reading is not quite so straightforward a success story. Indeed, as the series draws to a much-lamented close, federal statistics show that the percentage of youngsters who read for fun continues to drop significantly as children get older, at almost exactly the same rate as before Harry Potter came along.”

“Of all the social, cultural and political touchstones of the baby boom generation … the civil rights movement has yet to be the subject of a pivotal, defining feature film,” Ann Hornaday writes. “Here is a chapter of American life whose legacy and ramifications — from Don Imus’s idea of humor to the decisions of the current Supreme Court — are still deeply, if painfully, felt. … It’s a chapter that — considering the ever-increasing number of bankable African American stars — seems not just worthy of Hollywood’s attention but positively ideal for a major movie event.”